Guides
Floor plan drafting software: how to choose a tool for weekly listing work
If you draw floor plans for real estate photographers and agents, your tool decides whether you finish eight listings on a Tuesday or five. This guide covers what drafting software must do for weekly work, the three kinds of tools, a checklist, and how the pricing models compare. Dinoplan is our own product; we say where it fits and where it does not.
What a drafter's tool has to do
A homeowner planning a kitchen and a drafter with twelve listings in the queue need different things. For the drafter, five things matter most:
- Speed. Walls by typing a length, a whole room by typing its inside dimensions, snapping that helps but is never forced. Every extra click is multiplied by the number of walls in a week.
- Exact sizes. Clients check. Rough proportions or hidden rounding cost you a revision round.
- Branding per client. Each agency has its own colours, font and logo. Switching has to be one click, not a redo.
- The formats clients ask for. A high-resolution PNG or JPG for the listing, a PDF for the brochure, SVG for a designer, and for Dutch clients an FML file for Funda.
- Imports. Clients send a Floorplanner FML, an architect's PDF, a DXF or a photo of a hand sketch. The less you redraw, the better your hourly rate.
Three kinds of floor plan software
1. CAD programs
AutoCAD, DraftSight, LibreCAD and similar programs are precise to the millimetre and can draw anything. For listings they are often too much: no room areas out of the box, no house styles, and exports that need post-processing in a graphics program. Drafters with a CAD background can be fast in them; the question is how much time goes into styling after the drawing is done.
2. Interior design tools
Floorplanner, RoomSketcher, Planner 5D and others started with homeowners and interior designers. Strong points: huge furniture libraries, photorealistic renders, lots of tutorials. Weak points for listing work: credits or per-project pricing in some cases, branding that depends on the plan, and areas that are not always shown the way a Dutch client wants them (inside measurements, attic height lines). A good fit if your clients want furnished, rendered plans.
3. Dedicated real estate tools
A smaller group of tools exists for people who draw listings, not interiors: fast 2D drawing, inside areas per room, a clean export in a client's style, and the formats portals ask for. Dinoplan is in this group. The trade-off: fewer furniture items and no photorealistic renders, in exchange for speed and listing-ready output.
Want to try it? Open the sample home, no account needed.Want to try it on your computer? Email yourself the link.
A checklist before you commit
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Can I type a wall length or a room size directly? | Typing is faster and more exact than dragging |
| Is the area per room measured on the inside of the walls? | Dutch and many other clients expect inside measurements |
| Can I draw 1.5 m and 2.0 m height lines under a sloping roof? | Required on attic floors for Dutch listings |
| Can I save a house style per client and switch in one click? | You work for several agencies |
| Does it export PNG at high resolution, PDF, SVG and FML? | One tool for every client request |
| Is pricing flat or per project? | Predictable cost at volume |
Set up a client's house style once, reuse it every week
The biggest time saver after fast drawing is a saved house style: set colours, font and logo for an agency once, name the style after the agency, and every later plan for that client is one click away from the right look.
In Dinoplan: open a project, go to the house styles, set the colours and the font, add the agency logo and save the style under the agency's name. Draw each new listing in whatever style is active and switch to the client's style before you export. The free plan holds 1 house style, Pro holds 10; with more than ten agencies you rotate styles, which is a real limitation. Ask each client once for their brand colours as hex codes and a logo with a transparent background, so you never guess from a website screenshot.
Pricing logic: credits versus a flat monthly fee
Pricing models shape your margin more than any feature. Three are common:
- Credits per project. Floorplanner, per its pricing page, lets you make up to 5 projects for free with 960x540 watermarked exports and sells credits to upgrade a project to clean, high-resolution exports. Pro is about USD 29 a month. Credits are flexible in a quiet month and expensive in a busy one.
- Pay per plan. Dinoplan charges €2.99 per project; after that, every export for that home is free, including FML. Good for agents with one listing or drafters who are just starting.
- Flat monthly fee. Dinoplan Pro is €19.99 a month, or €16.99 a month billed yearly, with unlimited projects, 10 house styles, PNG up to 8000 pixels, FML, and the walk-through video. There is a 14-day trial without a credit card.
The break-even is simple. At €2.99 per plan, six plans cost €17.94 and seven cost €20.93. So from 7 plans a month, Pro at €19.99 is cheaper than paying per plan; at the yearly price of €16.99 the line is 6 plans. One steady photographer as a client usually puts you above it in the first month. For a team, the Agency plan at €49.99 a month (€41.99 billed yearly) gives 5 users, shared notes on the plan and a Claude connection. Details are on the pricing page.
How Dinoplan fits, and where it does not
Dinoplan is made for the work in this guide: fast 2D drawing with exact sizes, inside areas per room with attic lines, house styles per client, imports from FML, DXF, vector PDF and sketches, and exports to PNG, JPG, SVG, PDF and FML. The interface is in English and Dutch, and it runs in the browser with nothing to install. If many of your clients are in the Netherlands, read our guide on floor plans for Dutch real estate for what they will expect from you.
Where it does not fit: no photorealistic renders, a basic furniture library (hundreds of items, not tens of thousands), and it runs on a computer, not on a phone or tablet. If a client wants rendered, furnished images, Floorplanner or a rendering tool is the better choice. A side-by-side view is on Dinoplan vs Floorplanner, and the full list of what Dinoplan does is on the features page.
The simplest way to decide: draw one real listing in the free plan and time yourself. Start for free, no credit card needed.
Frequently asked questions
Which floor plan software is best for virtual assistants?
The one that matches what your clients ask for. If they send Floorplanner FML files and want clean 2D plans in their branding, a dedicated real estate tool saves the most time. If they want rendered interiors, an interior design tool fits better. Test with one real listing before you choose.
Do I need CAD to draw professional floor plans?
No. CAD is precise but slow for styled listing plans. A real estate tool with typed lengths gives the same accuracy for the dimensions that matter in a listing, with far less post-processing.
Is a flat monthly fee worth it if I only draw a few plans?
From about 7 plans a month, Pro at €19.99 is cheaper than €2.99 per plan. Below that, pay per plan. Start with paid single projects and switch when your volume grows.
Can I keep my Floorplanner projects if I switch tools?
Export them as FML from Floorplanner. Dinoplan imports walls, doors, windows, rooms, floors, measurements and texts. Furniture comes along where the product code is known, otherwise it appears as a frame.